That morning Richard had been flattered with a letter from the editor of a magazine, asking for a five-thousand word article on a leading personality of the Cabinet. This helped him bear the raillery of Bess; and the raillery, per incident, told him how much and deeply he was in the thoughts of Dorothy, which information made the world extremely beautiful. Richard had waited until his thirtieth year to begin to live! He was brought back from a dream of Dorothy by the unexpected projection of Mr. Fopling into the conversation. "The _Daily Tory_!" repeated Mr. Fopling, in feeble disgust. "I hate newspapahs; they inflame the mawsses." "Inflame what?" asked Richard. "Inflame the mawsses! the common fellahs!" Mr. Fopling was emphatic; and when Mr. Fopling was emphatic he squeaked. Mr. Fopling's father had been a beef contractor. Likewise he had seen trouble with investigating committees, being convicted of bad beef. This may or may not have had to do with the younger Fopling's aversion to the press. "Certainly," coincided Bess, again assuming the maternal, "the newspapers are exceedingly inflammatory." "Your friend Bess," said Richard to Dorothy, later, "is a bit of a blue-stocking, isn't she?--one of those girls who give themselves to the dangerous practice of thinking?" "I love her from my heart!" returned Dorothy, with a splendid irrelevance wholly feminine; "she is a girl of gold!" "Mr. Fopling: he's of gold, too, I take it." "Mr. Fopling is very wealthy." "Well, I'm glad he's something," observed Richard. "You hate him because he spoke ill of newspapers," said Dorothy teasingly. "Naturally, when a giant hand is stretched forth against the tree by which one lives, one's alarm runs away into hate," laughed Richard. Richard, now that the _Daily Tory_ letters were winning praise, that is to say, were being greatly applauded and condemned, began to have in them a mightier pride than ever. Educated those years abroad, he felt the want of an American knowledge, and started in to study government at pointblank range. Nights he read history, mostly political, and days he went about like a Diogenes without the lamp. He put himself in the way of Cabinet men; and talked with Senators and Representatives concerning congressional movements of the day. Being quick, he made discoveries; some of them personal to himself. As correspondent of a New York daily, those Cabinet folk and men of Congress encountered him affably; when he was not present they spoke ferociously of him and his craft, as convicts curse a guard behind his back, and for much a convict's reason.